Christus Rex* in April 1960 on unmarried mothers: "the mother can keep [the baby] but traditionally the family attitude is harsh and unforgiving and the mother can rarely manage to earn both a living for herself and the child" (*Irish Catholic sociology journal)

Sad reality is mother and baby homes were economic necessity given attitudes to 'fallen mothers' at time (which report suggests reflected by clergy, not created by them). Marriages few + late until 1960s; small farmers understandably wanted to keep land in family. Ch 9 points out

In 1926 "72% of Irish men between the ages of 23 and 43 were unmarried" (Diarmaid Ferriter's 'Occasions of Sin', p 103)

In 1945 farmers married at average age of 38.2

Marriages few and late because of wish to preserve farm intact and within family, dowries also very important.

Eugenic sterilisation of unmarried mothers practised in 27 US states, Switzerland and Denmark ("to protection against a visible dissolution of sexual morals among women") and rest of Scandinavia ('it was widely believed in Scandinavia that the degenerate were more promiscious')

Ch 35: "The Commission has seen no evidence that the religious orders which ran the institutions made a profit...All the evidence suggests that they struggled to make ends meet"

Local authorities gave meagre funding, often late. Helps explain suboptimal conditions + overcrowding

Under Institutional Assistance
Regulations 1954, homes could legally require a contribution from women but no evidence they ever demanded any payment nor deducted maternity allowance (introduced in 1953), unmarried mother’s allowance (1973-), nor salary of working mothers.

This was not the case for elderly residents in country homes run by local authorities, whose pensions were indeed deducted

Commission asked Dutch historian Nelleke Bakker to give summary of similar homes in NL, one of which had infants "locked in a room behind a barrier during the day, creeping around without pants, or shoes and without toys, with faeces lying around, even being eaten out of boredom"

Infant death rates in Glasgow 1923-25

Legitimate births 31%
Illegitimate births 42.6%

(Mostly from TB and other infectious diseases, which spread easily in crowded indoor conditions - prevaccine and pre-antibiotic era)

Commission found "no evidence women were forced to enter mother and baby homes by church or State authorities. Most women had no alternative. Many pregnant single women contacted local health authority, or a Catholic charity seeking help because they had nowhere to go + no money"

Attitudes to unmarried mothers in Toronto, Canada and Northern Ireland

"Ireland was unusual among English-speaking countries in the absence of mother and baby homes before 1918...The 1906 Vice-Regal Commission recommended unmarried mothers should be in the care of religiously-controlled institutions, ideally institutions owned by these bodies"

Victorian rescue homes for prostitutes in Belfast became mostly populated with unmarried mothers by beginning of the 20th century

Salvation Army homes for unmarried mothers in England charged mothers for cost "which could amount to up to 80% of her earnings, because there was a widespread belief that relieving single mothers of financial responsibility for their children would encourage further pregnancies"

"Mother and baby homes didn't originate in Ireland and earliest homes weren't established by Catholic orders. Their origins in Britain, US and Australia can be traced to Magdalen Asylums to rescue prostitutes. By end of 19th c every major British + US city had several such homes"

Conditions in the religious-run "mother and baby homes were greatly superior to the county homes", which were "successors to the pre-independence workhouses, owned and controlled by local authorities" (also staffed by them)

The Church "didn't invent Irish attitudes to marriage or respectability...Priests who denounced a man or woman responsible for unmarried pregnancy were reinforcing wider social concerns w/ family lineage and respectability of a community." Denunciations "not as common" as claimed

Commission found "there is no evidence of the sort of gross abuse that occurred in industrial schools. There are a small number of complaints of physical abuse". No complaints made of sexual abuse of children.

It did find emotional abuse but said it appeared that such abuse came from "as much if not more, from local residents and other school going children as from the institution itself. The major abuse suffered by former Tuam child residents came when boarded out."

Poisonous reports without context being written by agenda-driven journalists who had made up their minds before seeing the report (doubt they even read summary). Aim is to portray the homes as dystopian and falsely smear Ireland in the past as a theocratic, misogynistic hellhole

"The Commission found very little evidence that children were forcibly taken from their mothers; it accepts that the mothers did not have much choice but that is not the same as ‘forced’ adoption. Mothers did have time after initial placement for adoption to reassess situation"